Brokerage and investment banking firms spend large sums of money creating, printing and distributing thousands of graphic-rich research reports to investors (e.g., customer's, remote sales offices, investment advisors, brokers, portfolio managers, etc.). Firms seeking to reduce costs may consider distributing these reports electronically, from computer to computer. Electronic distribution is generally cost effective when compared with hard copy distribution methods. Global computer networks, such as the Internet, enable information to be distributed to a wide range of people at locations around the world. One of the many advantages of the Internet, particularly the World Wide Web ("WWW"), is that the communication protocols used are non-proprietary, thus enabling end users to access and use the Internet without the need for customized hardware or software.
Often, brokerage and investment banking firms wish to provide information to investors or users on a controlled basis. For example, the firms may want to provide information only to those users who have paid a fee or completed a registration process, and also may want to dynamically restrict access to certain types of information to certain classes of users. Additionally, the firms may require that the format of the information provided to one user be different from the format of the same information provided to another user or class of users.
Further, some investors may be interested only in certain types of information available from a firm. Investors may wish that the information received from an firm be output in a format specific to that investor.
Existing technology allows an information provider such as a brokerage or investment banking firm who distributes information via the WWW to restrict access to authorized users or investors by means of, for example, a user identification code and/or password. However, current password authorization methods used on the WWW have a number of significant problems. When using a browser program, such as Netscape's Navigator program or Microsoft's Internet Explorer program, to access web pages, a user is simply making a request to a remote web server (having a unique IP address) for a file. This file is stored in the user's computer local memory and is output by the browser program. Typically, web pages are in HTML format (HyperText Markup Language). Each time the user "moves" to a new web page, the browser program makes a new request to a web server (which may be the same or another web server) for a file. Thus, although a user may provide a password to obtain a file from a web server, the user typically does not log-out when the user has finished with this file--the user simply issues a request for a file on another web server or closes down his or her browser program.
When a user initially accesses a web server, most browser programs can provide the web server with an identification code identifying the particular browser as well as the user's Internet Protocol ("IP") address. However, when a user accesses a web server through a proxy server, many users may appear to have the same IP address.
To prevent concurrent use of a user's identification code and password (e.g., to prevent the user from distributing the user's identification code and password for use by others) when a user initially accesses a web server, the web server, using current password technology, can prevent other access with that identification code for a predetermined period of time. However, if the user moves to another computer or browser program, then the authorized user will be prevented from accessing the web server from the new computer or browser program.
Thus, a secure sign-on procedure is needed that prevents multiple users using the same identification code and allows an authorized user to move to another computer or browser program and still be permitted to access the secure web server.
When providing information via the WWW, information providers can, in a crude way, "customize" the information for a user. One simple example of customization is providing the user with the results of a query. Here, the user submits a query to the web server, e.g., by completing a form, and, based on the user's request, the web server creates a web page (or form) comprising information satisfying the query and transfers this web page (or form) to the user's browser program for display. In such systems, the program used to create the web page (or form) is "hard coded", so that if the information provider wishes to change the format of the information, this program must be recoded or replaced. Recoding or replacing such programs is inefficient and often time consuming.
Further, every user who submits the same query to the web server will receive the same results in the same format. Existing methods of providing information to WWW users do not enable different users to be automatically provided with different views of the information. Thus, a procedure is needed to enable the provision of customized views of requested information to WWW users.
When a user submits a query to a web server, the web server will typically format and submit the received query to a database program or search engine. There can be many types of queries that a user submits via an information provider's web server. For example, some queries may request information based on categories contained in a relational database (e.g., all presidents who were born in Virginia) while other queries may require full text searches of textual documents (e.g., all documents containing the words "sell" and "IBM"). Currently, information providers maintain one database of information that is used to obtain the results of all types of queries. However, while a database search engine may be fast and efficient in obtaining search results for some types of queries, it may be slow and inefficient in obtaining search results for other types of queries.
Moreover, when responding to queries via the WWW, the web server is accessed by many users. Due to communication delays over the Internet, it is wasteful to tie-up the database program or search engine until each user has received the full results of the user's query. It would be desirable in some instances to provide a search mechanism that allows asynchronous searching of a database by multiple web users such that the database program or search engine can take advantage of communication delays when serving multiple users.
Thus, in summary, an Internet information delivery system is needed that has a secure but flexible password control mechanism so that information is provided only to users who are authorized to receive it, that efficiently retrieves any requested information, and that customizes the views of information provided to users in a flexible and robust manner.
Additionally, corporations spend large sums of money creating, printing and distributing their annual reports (and other financial/investment documents) to shareholders and investment advisors. An annual report presents the corporation's view of its financial performance, and, in its presentation and format, often makes a statement about the style, direction and philosophy of the corporation. However, many recipients of these reports do not spend much time reading them. Further, an investor, analyst or investment advisor, when reviewing a corporation's performance, may not have the most recent annual report of the corporation readily available. It would be beneficial (for both the corporation and the investor) if the annual report produced by a corporation could be made available to those interested at the time of that interest.
Corporations also spend large sums of money on investor relations programs in order to, for example: be viewed as a first tier, quality stock and sound investment vehicle; seek a fair valuation for the price of the corporation's stock; reduce volatility by providing guidance to investors and attracting long-term investors; make the corporation's business more understandable; reinforce sales, marketing and product messages; and interpret and explain corporate philosophy, all so that investors will maintain and add to their investment in the corporation.
Corporations often wish to distribute to interested parties other corporate information, such as, for example, 10-K and 10-Q statements, press releases, quarterly faxes to analysts, etc. A corporation may wish to distribute this information generally or to a select audience.
Employees of brokerage and investment banking firms often have access to electronic document delivery systems, such as the Multex Publisher.TM. Research Viewer program, by Multex Systems, Inc. of New York, N.Y. or the Bloomberg-Multex Research system. Bloomberg-Multex Research, for example, is a real-time global research service that allows major brokerage firms to distribute publication-quality research information to their institutional clients including portfolio managers, analysts and traders. Information that is distributed on such systems include recommendation changes, morning notes, report headlines and full length research reports. This information is produced by brokerage firms and is distributed in a page description format reflecting the layout of the corresponding printed research report. It would be beneficial if investors, portfolio managers, investment brokers and traders could also access, at a single site, using a single integrated system, the wide array of information that is produced by the subject corporations themselves, such as, for example, annual reports, as well as profiles designed to highlight those features of a corporation and its strategy that are of particular relevance to investors.
When investors, portfolio managers and traders search electronic databases of research reports produced by brokerage firms, it would be also useful to search (and return as part of the search results) the text of corporation's annual reports, Internet web sites and other corporate-produced documents. This would provide the investors, portfolio managers and traders with additional information that would be useful in making investment decisions and recommendations.
Unfortunately, existing databases systems used by investors and analysts provide limited information. Research distribution systems include research reports but not corporate web sites or annual reports, the EDGAR database includes 10-K and 10-Q filings but not brokerage firms research reports or corporate web sites, Internet search engines search web sites and some public databases but not brokerage firms research reports or most corporation's annual reports. The complex and time consuming search process needed to gather all of this diverse information is incompatible with investors' need for rapid, easy access to time sensitive data.
Thus, there exists a need for an integrated information delivery system that meets the needs both of corporations (to have annual reports and other corporate information delivered to interested investors, advisors and analysts) and of investors (to quickly access a wide variety of sources when researching a corporation).
Some corporations take advantage of current Internet technology and make their annual reports available on the WWW for access by the public. However, it is often difficult to locate such annual reports (if any) in a corporation's web site. Further, the annual reports of each corporation are presented on the WWW in a variety of formats (e.g., different frames, page layouts, hyperlink navigation maps, etc.) making it difficult for the investment community to quickly and efficiently conduct research.
Often, like brokerage and investment banking firms, a corporation wishes to provide information on a controlled basis. For example, the corporation may want to provide information (e.g., detailed financial data or specialized product information) only to shareholders or to certain analysts. Additionally, the corporation may require that the format of the information provided to one person be different from the format of the same information provided to another person or class.
Further, some users of the information only may be interested in certain types of information available from a particular corporation.
Thus, there exists a need for a system for the electronic distribution of corporate information to those who a permitted (i.e., entitled) to have access to and wish to access the information.
When a corporation distributes corporate information (e.g., an annual report), it would be useful if the corporation was provided with information as to whether investors read and found the report useful. However, potential investors may not wish that third parties track the subject of their investment research. Accordingly, there is a need for a system that provides feedback to corporations as to use of their corporate information without disclosure of activities that may be regarded by investors as confidential.